Could you guys give me adivce on this story?

[Cosmic Average]

Out of the aloof nothingness that is space, a ship, on the verge of nonexistence, coalesced into being. Convoluted, swirling patterns formed by zephyr wings slowed and eventually stopped as the ship asserted itself in this plain of reality. The ship fired it's main thrusters, made a few minute corrections, and began to orbit Europa.

The Captain of the ship, the Skimmer, between bouts of dry heaving brought on from being momentarily nonexistent then violently thrust back into the sundry world of the living, said, "That skip wasn't so bad, now was it?" The Captain's easy going, informal way of addressing his crew was the result of several years of close contact.

His first mate, Lt. Gonzalez, who took the informality for granted, was nursing a bloody nose. "Yeah John, but it sure as hell wasn't easy. What's so important that they had to send us so far out here, all the way to freakin' Jupiter, and they wouldn't let you tell us 'til we got here?"

"The brass wouldn't let me tell because they know you're a mutinous lot and those who aren't spies are just itching at a chance to defect to the Hins." John said all of this with a grin. "The reason for this excursion is simple: we received a distress signal."

"From what? This part of space is well inside the Hins area of control."

"On Europa, there is a base whose sole purpose is to monitor for the return of a starship we sent out. With any luck, it’ll bring back some friends.”

“Let’s see here.. Is there any possible way you could make that any more cryptic and obtuse?”

“Yes, there is.” Weariness filled John’s voice. “The popular opinion of the upper echelon is that we’re not going to win this war. And god help me, I think they’re right. We haven’t won a single engagement since this war was forced upon us.” The Captain’s shoulders sagged.

“They believe our salvation lies in locating and enlisting an alien race to help stave off the damned Hins. An enormous amount of resources was used in the secret construction of a one-shot ship that is capable of skipping light-years at a time. That ship was constructed and launched from the base below, which it will head towards when and if it returns. That is why they had to send us out in one skip.” He smirked ferociously at Gonzalez.

“And now, Lt., if you’ll be so kind as to suit up so that we can talk a walk outside.”

______________

Main thrusters on his powered armor set on low, John gently descended to the approximate location of the Europa base. Gonzalez streaked by, arms firmly pressed against his sides, his thrusters assisting Europa’s lethargic gravity. He came in as close to the ground as he dared, then cut off the primary thrusters while using his directional rockets righted him. He set his main thrusters on maximum burn to counteract the gravity and the kinetic energy of his fall. This resulted in the vaporization of the top layer of ice.

Gonzalez glided to the edge of the temporary lake he made. He watched his Captain’s leisurely pace.

“Too fast for you, old man?”

“No, too stupid. That lavish waste of energy probably showed up on the scanners of every Hin ship in the area.” He said as he landed. “Now, let’s check out the base.” He indignantly walked past Gonzalez.

“If you haven’t noticed, Captain,” Gonzalez said indignantly, his pride wounded, “the base is bombed to hell and back. There is nothing salvageable here. Let’s get back our asses back to the ship and skip home.”

“No; we need to make a thorough search.” He ripped away the scorched outer hatch of the ruinous base and disappeared into the blackened entryway. Gonzalez followed.

The first thing John noticed was the frozen corpses as his flashlight played across their tortured features. The second was that the further in he walked, the less damage to the base there was. The third was the completely unmolested airlock door to the galley.

“If there are any survivors, they would be in there.” He needlessly told Gonzalez, who had already surmised this fact.

Gonzalez walked up to the door, looked through the reinforced glass, and tapped on it. “All I see are dead bodies, sir.”

“Then open it.”

Gonzalez nodded and punched in the authorization code. Nothing happened. “Electronics are dead. Gotta do it the old fashioned way.” The Lt. yanked the door open. There was a rush of air. “Well, if they weren’t dead, then the sure as hell are now.” He noted morosely.

After they had entered, Gonzalez began to examine the bodies. “Looks like radiation fried the poor buggers. They oxygen in here allowed them to decompose unlike the fellows in the corridor. From the state of decay, I’d estimate they’ve been dead about a week.”

“A week? But we received the distress call…” the Captain’s voice trailed away.

“When, sir?” Gonzalez asked, his voice panicking.

“Less than a day ago.”
“Maybe, maybe there’s still someone alive here, then.”

“No, the radiation would have gotten them. We have to get out of here right now.”

They quickly exited the base and used their thrusters to return to their ship just as a black silhouette blotted out the stars.

“Initiate-“ The Captain’s orders were cut off as the Hin ship swept the ship with a laser.

The computer sounded. “All hands to escape pods. Reactor critical. All hands to escape pods.”

Amidst the confusion, John made he was to the escape pods.

____________


John gradually came to. As his hands fumbled about, he attempted to stand. Despite his somewhat dedicated efforts, he found he was unable to. He slowly ceased his struggles, deciding to better spend his energy focusing on his surroundings.

He was tethered, no, strapped to a grooved, metal table that was set at an angle, itself positioned in the center of a room that was dimly lit with a pale green light. Beside him, splayed out on a tray were an assortment of what at first glance appeared to be surgical tools and construction equipment, but, he thought with a sinking feeling, probably were not.

Of course, he thought as unrelenting terror welled up deep inside him, things could be worse. And they could certainly be a lot of better. A small giggle, almost as an unconscious act of total defiance of the situation John found himself in, escaped his lips as his eyes wildly scanned the room, before fixing on a point on the bare wall facing him.

His mind, nearly shrinking deep within itself from the total horror of the environment that it found itself entrapped within, tried to assess the situation. So, I've been captured. I suppose I should consider myself lucky; I'm probably the first human to ever see a Hin. This bit of information seemed to feel him with an overwhelming sense of foreboding.

His roving eyes once again settled back on the wall directly in front of him. More than likely, that is where my courteous hosts will enter. I suppose I should reciprocate their generosity since they did go to such lengths, what with recovering my escape pod and everything. This bravado didn't even manage to fool John as he tried on a rather crooked grin before that too faltered.

Dread overwhelmed him as the wall before him irised open. Through this new entry way stepped a being who seemed to radiate elegance and beauty, nobility and honor. John’s heart swooned and all of his misery seemed to fall away. He sighed contentedly, certain that if such a wondrous creature as she existed, such a stark contrast to the bleak reality that enfolded him, then no true harm could visit itself upon him while he was in her presence.

She must be from a new alien race that's decide to intervene in this extremely lopsided war and she's been sent to rescue me! His thoughts rejoiced in this new found hope.

“So,” she said, her melodious voice seemingly surrounding and engulfing him in its majestic brilliance, “I see that you’ve finally awoken. For a brief while there, we feared the worse, but I’m glad to see we were wrong. Only a handful of you humans managed to survive the attack.”

“Oh," he said when he could finally draw in breath to talk, "you're able to speak English? Of course you can; your people have undoubtedly been monitoring us for quite awhile."

"Yes, but not for very long." Her soft, fluttering lips shaped the words without dither or accent.

"And now you've rescued me and chosen to intervene on our behalf in the war against the Hins in one fell swoop." John looked down at the ground for a brief respite before staring her directly in the eye. "And I can assure you, I can't wait to pay those bastards back for what they did to my ship, the Skimmer."

She leaned in close to him, smiling coyly. “Hins? That is a very quaint name for us.” Her smiled widened. “And what we did to your ship was necessary, but I can assure you, what we did, I took fantastic pleasure in."

"What?" John was visibly shocked at this. "But aren't you here to save me?"

The alien drew herself up to her full height. “Throughout this war, we have constantly fought and pushed your species back toward your home planet in purely ship-to-ship engagements. And that was all that was required to defeat you; we had superiority in numbers and technology. We had no need to know how to kill you on an individual basis. Until now.

"Since we're going to conquer your planet as opposed to merely eradicating it of life, which sadly means we can't just use atomics or bilogics." She glanced down at the tray beside John. "Which only leaves only conventional and chemical weapons. Your surviving crew are currently being tested to destruction through a variety of very promising chemicals. You, my little experiment, will be used to test our conventional methods.

“Now, what to use?” Her hand hovered over the tray before quickly selecting what looked remarkably like a small circular saw.

“WAIT! Don’t you want to ask me any questions?! PLEASE!!” John shrieked pleadingly as she brought the saw down on his chest.

[Kelly Antilles]

Not bad. Could use a little cleaning up, but very descriptive.

[Cosmic Average]

Thanks for the feedback.

What should I clean up?

[Kelly Antilles]

Well, It's probably just my writing style preference.

[Darth Fanboy]

I would say descriptions and make the installments longer unless you plan on doing quite a few of them.

[Cosmic Average]

Well, It's probably just my writing style preference.

What do you prefer?

[Setesh]

Its better than 'Portal'

[Singular Quartet]

Its better than 'Portal'

That's like saying you aren't the stupidest person I know.

[Setesh]

Its better than 'Portal'

That's like saying you aren't the stupidest person I know.

no there are worse fics than 'Portal', Fanfix has a Starwars/MonkeyMagic x-over

[Singular Quartet]

Its better than 'Portal'

That's like saying you aren't the stupidest person I know.

no there are worse fics than 'Portal', Fanfix has a Starwars/MonkeyMagic x-over

That's just wrong.